What do you think more families leave out of their family budget that costs very little, in comparison to other items in the budget, and can salvage their future?

I am sure you might have guessed, it is “Life Insurance”. If term life insurance is obtained at a young age, you can have over a million dollars of life insurance for a monthly payment of less than $100. Even if you are in your 40’s you can still get a good rate that provides a decent coverage on your life so your family will not be financially strained if something should happen to you unexpectedly. Even if you are in your 50’s, term life insurance will not bankrupt you and will provide some comfort for your wife or husband and family.

Cash Value Whole Life Insurance is not a great investment. The premiums are too high when compared with the cost of term insurance over a twenty year period of time. It is better to buy a term policy and invest the money that you would have spent on annuities or whole life policies in mutual funds.

I would recommend that you buy your life insurance from companies that have a high rating and have been around for many years. There are some life insurance companies that have gone bankrupt and had to either sell their policies to another company or not pay the policy holder. I know that life insurance agents have a reputation of being pushy, so tell them what type of policy you want and the approximate amount you want to be insured for and see what the rate is? Many people have said we do not need life insurance and I hate meeting with insurance agents. If you do not like what the agent is telling you or do not trust them call another one, there are a large number of companies and agents available.

There are places on line if you search for life insurance rates that will show you a comparison of rates after you fill in your age/ Some of them will not give you a rate unless you give them your email or phone number. Then they email you the rate or call you with the rate.

When determining the amount of life insurance you would like to have, consider your age and your financial obligations. A million dollars sounds like a lot of insurance but if your spouse had to pay off your home , cars, credit cards, and other obligations, how much would be left and how long would it last if your spouse did not work? Keep in mind that life insurance proceeds are not taxed. Life insurance proceeds can be invested and make some additional money. The earnings on the insurance proceeds may be taxable depending on what the investment type.

When selecting a mutual fund for the money you are not spending on whole life , it will depend on ;our age when you begin making deposits to the mutual fund. After the fund group is selected a determination of how to distribute the money within the funds available needs to be made. Index Funds that track the stock market have offered the most gain over a period of 5 to 10 years, but if you need the money short term, then index funds are not the way to go. There are balanced funds that contain high quality stocks and high quality corporate bonds, they do not offer a real high yield but the yield is much better than bank CD’s and government securities. keep in mind as your age and or needs change so might your fund distribution. Nost fund groups allow you to move the money between different funds within their fund group several times a year. Also I would suggest that you distribute the money to at least two or three different funds within the fund group you have selected in case one does not perform as well as you had hoped.

Investing strategies for retirement would present different goals and different funds within the fund group. Depending on your age and if you are investing through a 401-k or 403-B, usually the timeframe would 10 years or more. In that case you would want to have an index fund with a good 5 or 10 year yield record as one of your choices.

TAKE THE BIG STEP AND GET LIFE INSURANCE IF YOU DO NOT HAVE ANY. REASSESS YOUR LIFE INSURANCE NEEDS AT LEAST EVERY THREE YEARS TO SEE IF YOU HAVE ENOUGH INSURANCE OR IF INVESTMENT CHANGES NEED TO BE MADE.